Examine deal on Wright plane

Published 5:25 pm, Tuesday, September 3, 2013

There is no downside to the proposal made recently by a Bridgeport man that a federal agency examine a controversial "agreement" between the Smithsonian and the Wright family that is the keystone in a growing flap over who really flew first, the Wright brothers in December 1903 or Bridgeport's Gustave Whitehead in August 1901.

Efforts to insert Whitehead into the first-in-flight discussion have certainly popped up at various times over the decades, but attained little more than curiosity status in the broad world of aviation history.

Since last March, though, when the 100th edition of "Jane's All the World's Aircraft," the premier annual report on aviation, unequivocally declared Whitehead to have been first in flight, the debate has escalated from simmering to flat-out overheated.

Partisans on each side have not only pressed their cases with renewed vigor, but have excoriated opponents, frequently in the op-ed pages of this newspaper.

Generations of Americans have grown up with the unquestioned understanding that the Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur, were the first humans to fly, a breakthrough that occurred in December 1903. Backing their claim, of course, is the Smithsonian Institution, the official museum of the United States. The Wright brothers plane, the Flyer, is one of the museum's prized displays.

Some doubt on the Smithsonian's support of the Wright brothers' case, however, was created in 1978 with the disclosure that the government had entered into a written agreement with the Wright heirs that makes the museum's ownership of the plane contingent on its insistence that the Wrights were first to fly a heavier-than-air aircraft.

We couldn't agree more. The advocates, including spokesmen for the Smithsonian, have weighed in.

Everyone from the Wright camp to the Whitehead camp to the rest of us deserve at look at the evidence by a third, independent party. The GAO fits the bill.

A congressional committee, according to the former director, would have to ask the agency to investigate.

So we'd join Walker in asking the Connecticut delegation to request one.

Settling this question is not a petty one. It's not a bet between governors on a football game with local pride and trinkets at stake. It's about fair play and either affirming or correcting the record. If indeed the Whitehead evidence doesn't hold up -- and the GAO, of course, is not being asked to weight that evidence, only the propriety of the "agreement" -- then so be it.

"I just want the facts and the truth for the American people -- that's what the Smithsonian should be all about," Walker said.